By Jacquelynn Engle, M.S., I.C.P.S., Kidsnow Plus Coordinator
Regional Prevention Center of Seven Counties Services, Inc.
Here is something that most people don’t know. If a woman avoids alcohol for the entire nine months of pregnancy, she has prevented the leading known cause of mental retardation in the United States: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). Many women stop drinking as soon as they find out they are pregnant, but alcohol can affect an unborn baby even before a woman knows she’s pregnant. The developing brain is highly vulnerable to the poisonous effects of alcohol at every stage of pregnancy – even the last trimester.
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